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How Your Business Can Create and Maintain Its Reputation

With your business now in the swing of 2019, serving your customers and establishing strong connections, you also need to start thinking toward future encounters. Constructing a reputation may seem like a goal on the horizon first, but it’s incredibly important to take steps to build it so it’s ready for the long term. Reputation is something that takes a long time to build but can be lost in the blink of an eye, so be ready before it falls. Here are some tips from Sparkfactor that can help you create and maintain your reputation!

Be Credible and Dependable

We’ve all had the situation where, someone promises that they’ll pick something up for your business or call you back when they can on a deal, and then flaking out at the last second. Keeping your credibility and following up on matters like these is crucial from the start to make the building blocks of your reputation. It sets you out to be a reliable person, one that will get things done on time, and will build an anchor of dependability. So, when you say you’ll get to that call “right away” or work on an asset that needs to be improved “by Thursday”, actually step up and do it. You’ll not only be thankful you finished the work, but those on the other end will see you as a person they can trust with tasks that need to get done.

Be Genuine To Your Audience

Presenting yourself in a professional manner is important, as we’ve discussed and heard before, but it’s also important to be genuine. As the saying goes, honesty is the best policy. You want your first impression to be your best foot forward, and that starts with being genuine. Sometimes things don’t always work out, perhaps there was a bad deal with another company or make a mistake that ends up damaging your reputation with your customers. Instead of shifting the blame, you have to own up to it and make sure it doesn’t happen again. Be upfront about the things you want to improve for your audience, and they’ll also see your honesty as a point of dependability too.

Be Engaging and Consistent

Alongside being genuine, you have to engage with your audience, which both go hand in hand with remaining consistent. It all ties into a circle; when you are positive in your engagement with other businesses and customers, you bring a genuine confident energy to the table, and in turn people will share their experiences they had with your company. You want to remain consistent in these positive and confident interactions, as good news like this will be wonderful for bolstering your reputation. You also want to find ways to engage with your audience in order to make their experience better. Sparkfactor can help you set up surveys for them to fill out in order to build a closer relationship. Not only is it good for setting up your reputation with your customers, but you will also get a good idea of what they want from you going forward.

Be Ready To Navigate Negativity

However, when it comes to your business reputation, there will be ups and downs. Even after you’ve put your best foot forward and owned up to the mistakes you’ve made, there will still be those that slip through the cracks. No one can avoid negativity entirely, but how to deal with it and how to repair your reputation when it comes is what to be ready for. When dealing with a negative review or a negative rumor, it’s imperative to approach it professionally and friendly. It may be a gut reaction to want to prove the reviewer wrong, but you have to put that elsewhere. You don’t want to get extremely fired up, if it’s the reviewer’s intentions to get your goat, you can only end up burning yourself. Determine if the review is valid for its negative tone, see things from their side, respond to it as soon as you can, and be sure to respond with actual action rather than simple words. Think of ways to better your company from a review like this. Negative reviews can often be used as teaching tools to suss out problems that may be apparent in your business.

If you want to keep to continued success in these early months of 2019, you want to have a strong start with your reputation. The kinds of phrases and words that travel with your business and what kind of decisions you make will stick with you as you grow. Building and maintaining a solid, good reputation will not only make customers interested, but it will show that you have the competence and drive to run a successful business. You won’t be able to get on everyone’s good side, of course, but now you have the tools to handle negativity when it does come. Sparkfactor too was once in your shoes, but how our reputation has grown in strides to where it is now, is all thanks to the diligence of maintaining a solid reputation with our customers. So, good luck out there and put your best foot forward!